


Ever Ever After

by silversoliloquy



Category: Princess Tutu
Genre: Alternate Universe - Wedding Planner, F/M, Fakiru Week 2016, Fluff, just so much fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-29
Updated: 2017-01-29
Packaged: 2018-09-20 10:23:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9487088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silversoliloquy/pseuds/silversoliloquy
Summary: Fakiru week prompt: wedding





	

**Author's Note:**

> I had way too much fun looking at wedding insp stuff for this fic, so there's a pinterest board [here](https://www.pinterest.com/savannah0073/wedding-fic/)!

A fairy tale wedding.

Ahiru is pretty sure that this job, right here, right now, is what she’s been waiting for ever since she decided to become a wedding planner.  This is what her whole career has been leading up to—this beautiful woman in the red dress and her handsome fiancé, sitting in her tiny office space and asking her to plan them a _fairy tale wedding_.

It’s possible she’s being melodramatic about this, but it’s _perfect_.  She can’t remember the last time she was this excited about work; she already has a dozen ideas just from looking at the beautiful couple, so perfect to play the roles of prince and princess.

“It’s what we both want,” the groom-to-be, Mytho, is saying, taking his fiancée’s hand in his and smiling earnestly.  “We’ve both been through—well, a lot, in the time we’ve known each other, but we always knew it was meant to be.  We’ve earned our happily ever after.”

He looks at his fiancée with so much love, Ahiru has to stop herself from cooing out loud.  She loves it when the couples who hire her are this openly, obviously excited to be married.  It isn’t quite as common as it should be.

Her friends tell her she’s a hopeless romantic, but it _is_ sort of her job to be.

The dark-haired woman in red speaks next—Rue, she introduced herself as Rue, what a beautiful name.  “I don’t really have—a traditional family, or a traditional upbringing,” she says, smoothing her skirt over her knees self-consciously.  “So I’m not going to one of those brides who’s been dreaming about her wedding since childhood and has to micromanage everything, Miss Ahiru.  Frankly, I have no idea what needs to be done, or how to go about doing it, and I don’t really care to try.  I’d rather leave all the details to your expertise.”

“We want to have the, you know, the fairy tale magic, but it’s not going to be a big wedding,” Mytho adds.  “Money isn’t a problem, I want to go all-out on the spectacle because my Rue deserves to be treated like a princess, but we want it to be just close friends.  Neither of our families are really in the picture, so you may have to tweak the traditional ceremony structure a little.  I’m sure you’ll know the best way to do that.”

“Leave it to me!” Ahiru beams at them both.  “I don’t know why everyone acts like wedding planning is this terrible stressful thing for the bride and groom—it shouldn’t have to be, this is about the most important day of your lives after all.  I’ll make sure it won’t be.”  Rue looks slightly skeptical, she notices, but Mytho’s face is pure gratitude.  She supposes that planning a whole wedding without relatives to help out would seem pretty daunting, especially to such a young couple.

“I’m going to spend tonight getting some pictures together, just some basic ideas for the aesthetic of the whole wedding, and then we can go over them tomorrow if you want?  Once we pick a more specific look than just “fairy tale” to go for, I’ll be able to start getting samples together and finding possible venues and everything.  It’s going to be a pleasure working with the two of you!”

***

Planning a wedding like this for such a lovely, happy couple is exciting enough—even better is the fact that she genuinely likes Rue and Mytho, once she gets to know them.  Mytho is warm and sweet and kind to everyone—the perfect prince charming.  She can’t believe she’s lucky enough to get to turn him into a real one, even if just for one day.  And Rue comes off as a little prickly and aloof at first but after a few weeks she warms to Ahiru, her cool exterior melting like butter over long afternoons spent flipping through catalogues and sipping coffee and just talking.  She’s obviously lonely, and it makes Ahiru’s heart ache—there are plenty of Rue’s friends on the guest list, but no one who she wants to ask to be a bridesmaid.  Every giggle that Ahiru manages to coax out of her is a treasure.

“I’ve never really spent much time with another girl like this,” Rue admits one day over a brunch that’s barely related to wedding planning, and Ahiru decides right there that spending as much time with the bride as possible is even more important than giving her the perfect wedding.  Rue is obviously besotted with Mytho and they’re lucky to have each other, but Ahiru can’t let her go on without at least one real _friend_.

And the planning itself is practically a dream.  Mytho is happy with everything so long as Rue approves, but he has good taste and an eye for finery when he can be persuaded to give his opinion.  Rue starts out on the project determined to have as little to do with it as possible, but ends up invested and passionate; as Ahiru reminds her repeatedly, not even the best wedding planner can read minds, and this is _her_ dream wedding, not anyone else’s.  It isn’t enough to be perfect, it has to be Rue and Mytho’s perfect.  Ahiru thinks she’s quite good at her job and excels at coming up with ideas and options and finalizing details, but she’s always been firmly of the opinion that her job is to guide the bride and groom to their perfect wedding, not force her vision onto them.  Luckily, in this case Ahiru’s taste is so similar to her clients’ that there’s hardly any conflict or tension; both of them are delighted by her ideas, and are eager enough bring their own touches to the plans.  This ought to be the easiest job she’s never had.

Except that, about a week after she takes the job, she meets Mytho’s best man.

Their friendship is slightly baffling; opposites attract, she supposes.  It’s still hard to imagine how this grouch ever became so close with the lovely, cheerful Mytho.  Still, if all she had to do was stuff him in a suit, teach him his queues, and find him an appropriate seat at the dinner, it wouldn’t be a problem.  But since, as Mytho reminds her, he and Rue have no family, Fakir somehow ends up helping with the wedding planning.  “He’s practically my brother anyways, and I appreciate his input,” Mytho says firmly, and that seals it.

Fakir is a nightmare to work with.

He does have some good ideas, she has to admit, and his draft of the best man’s speech is beautiful, but he’s terribly condescending and rude.  And he keeps trying to tone down her more grandiose ideas, wrinkling his nose at the thought of doves and huge cathedrals and sparkly decorations.  “Rue and Mytho asked me for a _fairy tale wedding_ ,” she reminds him snappishly, after an afternoon of him vetoing her decoration ideas before she can even show them to the couple.  “If _you_ want to get married in a courthouse, that’s none of my business.  But _this_ wedding _is_ my business, on account of the paychecks Mytho is sending me, and I am going to make sure it’s as _romantic_ and _magical_ as it is within my power to make it.”

“It’s too _Disney_ ,” he groans, waving his hands at the open sample binders spread across the table.

“Disney is great!  There’s nothing wrong with Disney, it’s _classic_.”

“If Mytho wanted Disney, they’d be holding their wedding at the damn theme park.  He hired you because he wanted someone who could turn the fairy tale theme into something classy, not this—floofy, sparkly, tacky nonsense.  Mytho’s too nice to say no to anyone but it’s still his wedding, so it’s _my_ job to make sure it’s not an utter joke.  And if you suggest a musical number at the reception, I will murder you and finish planning this wedding myself.”

Ahiru snorts.  “As if you could.  Now if you would just shut up for a minute, I will _show you_ how I am going to combine these elements in a way that’s _extremely_ classy, thank you very much.”

“There’s no way I’m letting you convince my best friend that he should hire a _horse-drawn carriage_ to carry his bride to the church.  Absolutely not.”

“Well, yeah, that one was a long shot,” Ahiru sighs, rearranging the binders, and ignores Fakir’s glare.

***

It takes her a while to figure out what his problem is.  Well, some of his problem is just that he’s abrasive and grouchy, but she’s worked with far more difficult clients before; at least Fakir has a sense of humor sometimes.  For a while she thinks that it’s Rue he objects to, that he thinks his best friend is marrying beneath him or that his fiancée is bad for him somehow; Ahiru bristles at the very idea.  But Fakir smiles when he sees Mytho being affectionate with his fiancée; he genuinely seems to mean it when he says that he’s happy that Mytho is happy, even though he and Rue clearly aren’t close.  He’s still making the wedding planning much harder than it needs to be with his stonewalling and micromanaging though, which makes whatever it is Ahiru’s problem too.

It’s when Mytho shows her an album of college photos that she starts to get an inkling of why the best man is being so weird about the wedding.  He’s present in almost all the pictures, usually off to one side while Rue and Mytho smile at the camera with their arms around each other.  He’s also in the even older photos Mytho digs out, the one from his childhood before he even met Rue.  There aren’t any other friends in any of the pictures; just Fakir and Mytho, and Mytho and Rue.  If Fakir isn’t posing with Mytho or the two of them together, he’s by himself.

Ahiru isn’t a therapist, it’s not her job to make Fakir deal with his issues, but she also hates to see people unhappy, no matter how hard they try to hide it.  And the last thing she wants is him being a little raincloud at the reception and making Mytho worry.

“Mytho isn’t going to abandon you when he gets married, you know,” she bursts out finally, over a coffee break.  It’s just the two of them today; Rue and Mytho are out shopping.

Fakir starts, stares at her wide-eyed.  “Don’t be ridiculous,” he manages.  “I’m happy for my best friend.  I’ve been saying that for months.  I don’t know why you won’t believe me.”

“No, I believe you.  But—listen, I’ve planned a _lot_ of weddings, I’ve dealt with a lot of weird family situations.  Overly attached parents who don’t want to let go, kids who hate their step-parent-to-be, jilted exes breaking trying to crash the ceremony, jilted exes _invited_ because the bride doesn’t think it’ll be weird, basically you name it.  There’s always someone who freaks out about marriage meaning change.  I can tell when someone’s got mixed feelings about a wedding, and trust me, you do.”

“I’m not Mytho’s family.  I’m his _friend_.”

“Best friend, since childhood,” Ahiru points out.  “And pretty much only friend, if my understanding is correct.  Look, it’s none of my business, but Mytho clearly loves you a lot.  _Obviously_ he loves you a lot, or he wouldn’t let you hang around being a pain in my butt all the time.  And Rue’s not even having bridesmaids or a maid of honor; Mytho wouldn’t have a best man unless he really, really wanted one.  So can you please stop acting like the wedding has to be perfect as some, I don’t know, last gift to your best friend?”

Fakir grimaces into his coffee.  “Well, when you say it like that.”

“Yeah.  So for my sake, just—chill a little bit, and maybe talk to Mytho?  He’s not going to forget about you, or disappear or something just because he’s married.  Weddings don’t change things _that_ much, trust me.”  She smiles at him brightly, and is pleased to see that he actually seems to be considering it.  “We don’t have time for drama, we have lots to plan and I swore to Rue this would be totally stress-free,” she adds, and Fakir almost smiles.

It’s a start.

***

Things actually do start to get better; from the affectionate-to-the-point-of-sappy looks Mytho starts giving Fakir, Ahiru assumes that they had some kind of conversation and reaffirmed their friendship, or something.  Fakir is still firmly opposed to many of her more grandiose ideas, of course, but she wasn’t expecting that to change.  All she hoped was that he would quit being quite so stubborn and negative all the time and, to her immense relief, it seems that a Fakir who isn’t actively terrified of losing his best friend is also a Fakir who can be reasoned with, and who isn’t always a headache to be around.  He really does have good ideas sometimes, and, misgivings gone, he’s as excited about the wedding as she is.  Which is to say, not nearly as excited as Rue and Mytho are, but still—it’s nice to know that the four of them are all on the same page, or close enough to it.

Rue and Mytho get busier and busier as the wedding draws nearer meaning that, more and more often, Ahiru’s usually left finalizing details with Fakir while the bride and groom are off attending dancing lessons and dress fittings and planning out the non-wedding-related aspects of their upcoming marriage.  It’s…not terrible.  It’s almost fun sometimes.

Fakir’s reaction, when she pulls out her ideas for decorating the cake, is to laugh instead of snarling like he would have done a month before.  “Ahiru, this one is—ridiculous.  It’s not a cake, it’s a small sculpture—how would you even eat that?  Is there even any cake in there, or is it just pure fondant?  And this one—who needs strings of crystals dangling off their _cake_?  I know if it were up to you every guest would be doused in glitter as they walked through the door, but really.”

“You are a killjoy with no romance in your soul, and glitter is amazing,” Ahiru informs him cheerfully.  “Fine, we’ll nix those ones, and I guess the one that lights up is a bit too much too.  But I insist on showing Rue the one with the model castle topper.”

Fakir’s lip twitches.  “Fine.  But only if I get to suggest that nice sensible one-layer one with the candied rose petals.”

“You like the rose petal one?” Ahiru stares in disbelief.  “We’ll make a romantic of you yet!”

“Mytho and Rue like roses and it’s elegant and all of it will taste good, unlike all this fondant nonsense,” he says, rolling his eyes.  “And I resent that implication.  I grew up with Mytho, after all; some of it must have rubbed off on me.”

***

It’s to be a spring wedding, of course; Rue and Mytho approached Ahiru nine months before they wanted to be married.  It’s long enough, but barely.  The time flies by in a blur of organized chaos, lists to be checked off, appointments and online orders and frustrating phone calls, coffee dates with Rue, later and later nights—Ahiru sometimes feels like she’ll never stop viewing the world through a lens of purple, pink, and gold.  Still, despite the increasing levels of crazy, Ahiru finds she hadn’t lied to Rue on that first day; this job isn’t stressful, not really, not for her or for her clients.  She loves Rue and Mytho, and she’s proud of what she’s put together—between the four of them, somehow, everything seems to be falling into place, and the picture that’s building of both the ceremony and the reception is even lovelier and more magical than she could have hoped.

By the time April comes and Mytho’s favorite cherry blossoms are blooming outside the little church they’ve picked to hold the wedding, everything is ready.

***

The wedding ceremony, of course, goes off so perfectly that Ahiru feels absolutely justified in being smug about it.  Rue, her unusually bad pre-wedding jitters conquered by Ahiru’s relentless optimism, shines like the moon in her beautiful lace gown; she looks every inch the princess, right down to the delicate golden tiara holding back her veil.  Beside her, Mytho beams at anyone and everyone who happens to catch his eye, and Ahiru doesn’t think he’s let go of Rue’s hand since she joined him at the church altar.  They make such a beautiful couple it’s almost ridiculous.

Even the weather is behaving itself, with the perfect blue sky dimming into a lovely sunset that Ahiru makes sure the photographer gets into the background of most of his shots of the happy couple.  She’s not sure if Rue and Mytho even notice, but they’ll appreciate it when they go through the photo album later.

It’s perfect.  Clothes, decorations, catering, cake, happy couple; there’s nothing left for Ahiru to do.  Except maybe gloat a little.

“I told you,” she laughs when she finds Fakir nursing a glass of wine in the corner of the large pavilion that’s housing the reception.  Party pooper.  “I told you it would work out!  Look me in the eye and tell me the fairy lights look tacky.  I dare you.”

“They do look pretty, I suppose.”

“They look _magical_ ,” Ahiru corrects, “because I am excellent at my job and this is the best fairy tale wedding ever.  Go on, say I was right.”

Fakir actually laughs.  “You were right, Ahiru.  It’s just what Mytho wanted, and I’m sure Rue feels the same.”

“Yeah,” she grins, and steals a sip from Fakir’s glass of wine.  It’s the fruity, sparkly stuff she picked out specially, like fairy wine.  She made a good call on that, too.

Fakir is looking at her oddly, or maybe it’s just the romantically dim lighting changing his expression.  Or maybe it’s the effect of wine she drank earlier in the evening.  He looks handsome like this, she catches herself thinking, in his charcoal suit with the pocket square that brings out his green eyes.  She had managed to convince him to wear a simple silver circlet as a concession to the royal theme, and that suits him too, subtle but dignified against his dark hair.

“I don’t think you get _all_ the credit, though,” he’s saying, and Ahiru snaps out of her daydream.  “I picked this song, I believe.”

“You did,” she agrees.  The string quartet is playing a lovely melody, one that she’d never heard before Fakir gave her a playlist of suggestions.  “And it’s perfect.  We could be at a ball in the royal palace, like Cinderella.”

He’s smiling again.  It’s distracting.  “We made a good team,” he says, and Ahiru laughs and nods.

“In spite of the arguing.  Know anyone else who needs marrying off?  A distant cousin, maybe?  We could go for a steampunk vibe next time.  I have some ideas.”

“I bet you do.”  Fakir is silent for a moment, as if he’s not quite certain how to phrase whatever he wants to say next.  It’s odd—Fakir is always so good with words.  The final version of his best man speech had the entire audience in tears.  “You could tell me about it,” he says finally, hesitatingly.  “Whatever job you get next, I mean.  I’d like to hear about it.  We could—text?  Or have coffee together or something, and catch up.”

Ahiru studies his face in the dim light.  His expression is carefully blank, but she’s fairly sure he’s blushing.  “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Good.  I’d like that.”

They’re quiet for a moment, watching Rue and Mytho whirl gracefully around the sparkling dance floor.  The waltzing lessons paid off, too, she notes; they look perfectly natural, as if dancing together comes as easily as breathing.

“You owe me a Disney movie marathon, anyways,” Ahiru says, breaking into a grin.  “There’s still not enough romance in your soul.  We’ve got to fix that.”

“Oh, god, please, no.”  Ahiru giggles at the horror in his voice.  “Please, I get enough of that when my little cousin visits.  Have mercy.”

“Absolutely not.  Maybe we’ll go to Disneyland while Rue and Mytho are off on their honeymoon.  Wouldn’t want you getting lonely without them.”

“Remind me never, ever to introduce you to Uzura.  You two could rule the world with glitter and catchy musical numbers.”

“Eh,” Ahiru says, looking out on the party she created.  “I’ve gotten kind of used to being the power behind the throne, so to speak.  I’ll leave that to your little cousin.  She sounds like has a bright career of world domination ahead of her.”

“Mmmm.”

Fakir looks odd again, uncertain.  Ahiru almost wants to demand to know what he’s thinking about, but there’s something almost fragile about this moment, the two of them joking together while the party spins on without them.  Whatever it is, Ahiru feels like the wrong word now would shatter it.

“Do you want to dance?”

The question bursts out of Fakir almost like he didn’t mean to say it, and now he’s _definitely_ blushing.  Ahiru feels her own cheeks warm in response.

“I—really?”

Fakir nods.  “I mean—if you want to?  I want to dance with you.  Really.”

Somewhat to her surprise, Ahiru finds that she really, really wants to dance with him too.

“Okay,” she says, and beams when he offers her his hand, formal and sweet.  “I’m warning you though, I’m _really_ bad at dancing.”

“You’re a _wedding planner_!  Your actual job is to go to weddings, where there is literally always dancing!”

“Doesn’t mean I’m good at it, though,” Ahiru giggles as Fakir leads her toward the dance floor.  “People don’t usually invite the wedding planner to dance, you know.”

“They should.”

The string quartet is playing another of Fakir’s selections, something slow and sweet and lovely.  Ahiru’s sure her face is scarlet when Fakir puts his hand gently on her waist, but—it feels right.

She trips on the hem of her dress almost as soon as they start to move, but Fakir steadies her, and smiles instead of mocking her misstep.  They dance slowly, and Fakir is _good_ —Mytho must have dragged him along to some of his waltz lessons.  His hands are warm, and she has a hard time looking away from his eyes.

It’s magical.  It’s _perfect_.

They don’t stop after the first song—Ahiru loses track of time, a little bit.  She finally notices that she’s breathless and a bit dizzy, and Fakir leads her off the dance floor and back to their quiet corner.  He doesn’t let go of her hand; she doesn’t want him to.

He meets her eyes again, sweet and uncertain.  “Ahiru, listen—I—”

She doesn’t let him finish, leaning up on her tiptoes to press her lips against his.  _Perfect_ , she thinks, again, when he pulls her close and kisses her back.

Ahiru opens her eyes slowly, when they finally break apart.  Fakir is staring at her, breathless, and she wants nothing more than to kiss him again.

“Disneyland,” she blurts out instead.  “We’re going.  I think we’ve both earned a vacation, and you’re going to _enjoy it_.”  Fakir laughs and nods, and Ahiru feels giddy.  What kind of spell did she inadvertently weave into this wedding, that she’s found her happy ending alongside Rue and Mytho’s?


End file.
